QMI Agency

The Ottawa Sun sports columnist seemed to touch a nerve in Pittsburgh with his Tuesday 'Cheapseats' column, which came in the aftermath of Brennan's advance coverage of Cooke coming to Ottawa for the first time since injuring Senators star defenceman Erik Karlsson. Brennan reported that Cooke, after the morning skate Monday, told him he had no balls before leaving the dressing room.

This touched off a commenting surge on the Sun's website, and on Twitter, where the column made the social media rounds. Popular sports website Deadspin also did a post on the column.

"Aw, did Cooke make fun of you," @cmhnedlink, who has pictures of four Penguins players on her Twitter profile, wrote to Brennan on Twitter. "Did he hurt your feelings? Aw, you poor thing."

While there were many critical messages -- Pittsburgh's @Steel_City14 called Brennan "gutless" -- there also was a good dose of humour.

Buffalo News hockey writer Mike Harrington tweeted "Great Balls of Fire!" and linked to the story on Twitter.